1,651
by Athena
Summary: One thousand, six hundred, and fifty-one. The first and the last are the most important. Maurits-centric with spoilers through end of the main quest.


"**1,651"**  
Finished September 7, 2008

One thousand, six hundred, and fifty-one.

One marker for every life. One row for every ten. One plot for every hundred.

One thousand, six hundred, and fifty-one flowers.

He kept the garden in the back of the village, behind his house and guarded by well-placed trees and shrubs. His garden was his only sanctuary, as well as the only place where his grief lay bare. Few had ever seen the garden, let alone known about its existence; Maurits was a secretive man, even among his own kind, even when he sought to unite them under trust.

Those few were dead now—some, much longer than others.

"_Father, I want to commit to the rite with him."_

It all began with his daughter. Eighteen years young and raised solely by her father, she had confided in him that there was a boy she adored and wanted to be with for the rest of her life. The boy was part of a vagrant Ferines family; his parents journeyed out to Orerines cities in disguise and traded with other Ferines villages, and were often only in the village for a few weeks before moving on.

Wary of the family's lifestyle, he forbade her to go near the boy and denied his blessing.

His daughter ran away a day later, disappearing from the village for over a year. When she finally returned, it was with her new husband. Before Vaclav's land-scorching brigade was created, Ferines were much more likely to return from the village after disappearing suddenly. Maurits had not yet realized just how lucky he was to have his daughter back safe and sound.

Safe and sound, that is, until she decided to go with the boy's family again two years later. Maurits tried to convince himself that he didn't care—that his daughter was free to live her life, even with the danger she threw herself into.

It worked well. Too well. When she returned next, she tried to visit him with the new edition to their family, a baby boy. He shut the door on them and did not see them off when they left the village a week later. He did not want anything to do with anyone who walked so easily in and out of his life.

That was the last time he saw his daughter, and the only time he saw his grandson.

Soon after, he began hearing of Orerines that abducted Ferines. Entire trade caravans disappeared. That boy's family caravan was one of them.

"_I love you, Father, but I also love him. Please don't make me choose."_

"…_Allow me to make your choice profusely easier then, my dear. Goodbye."_

The carnage of the ongoing war between the Orerines nations of Crusand and Gadoria had left some Ferines trapped in between, but deaths had remained relatively few for the children of the sea. That is, until the rise of the ambitious Bolud clan. Maurits found himself keeping count of the dead that he heard of, as well as the numerous abductions.

By the time the Merines was born, he had a death count of over five hundred. Entire Ferines villages, small as they were, were beginning to disappear. Those that remained in contact were paralyzed with fear. The birth of the legendary Merines went unobserved by many villages that had lost faith in the old myths.

The young life of Shirley Fennes was nurtured even amongst increasing news of Vaclav. He was recruiting elite Orerines who would be incredibly loyal to him. He formed the Terrors to be field commanders alongside him. The years passed, the Merines grew older, and Maurits' death count neared one thousand.

The invasion and razing of the village shattered that number. Having known the village his entire life, Maurits knew every name and face that had been wiped off the mortal coil. The elderly who had hoped to die in a peaceful manner. The young who had so much to live for. The families that he had watched over with a wretched regret growing in his chest.

He even had a marker for Stella Telmes. He did not remove it from his garden even after he had heard she was alive; it seemed inevitable that he would have to replace it.

The last marker belonged to someone Maurits had known for a relatively short period of time. Less than two years, with several months noted only by brief letters.

They first met within the Gadorian territory. Rumors of a huge, glowing bat flying through the afternoon blue lured Maurits out of the Gadorian village he had been working from. In the middle of the forest, his teriques encountered a Ferines presence and reported its position back to him. The boy he found was 15 years old and delirious with grief and exhaustion.

"_Don't. Don't. I'll kill you… Like they… They killed me."_

He had assumed by those words that the erratic and starving youth would be dead within days. But those days turned into weeks, and weeks revealed an enduring spirit beyond that heartache. A spirit that believed in the Merines and rose from near-death with the mere mentioning that the Merines was still out there somewhere.

Even before the Ferines began to congregate on the Legacy, Walter assisted him in planning for the Merines' arrival. They spoke often of their plans, but more so about their experiences and the Orerines. He eventually found himself speaking about the mental tally he had of the Ferines who had died at Orerines hands in his lifetime.

It was Walter's suggestion that he give those dead a proper place to be remembered, especially those who had no one to mourn them, no body to be mourned over. Maurits chose to create a graveyard garden as a symbolic place where the Ferines could continue living, receiving life from the water.

It took Maurits awhile to acknowledge that he had been reaching out emotionally to the boy who quickly grew into a young man. Alone after the destruction of his village, Maurits did not confide in others because of his distrust of Orerines and physical distance from other Ferines. The seldom-seen disguised Ferines only gave him a glimpse of the life he feared returning to; he remained in an Orerines village because it was much less likely to be burned down than a Ferines village. Helping Walter gave him his first companion in over a year, and one who was willing to dedicate his life to the betterment of the Ferines' condition.

No matter how extreme the ideas were.

"_I want to live in a world where the Ferines don't suffer anymore."_

"_For the moment, just focus on living."_

Maurits mentioned one day that Walter was around the same age his grandson would have been. Walter had smiled wanly at the thought, and then turned away.

His flower now sat alone in a row made for ten. In a plot of fifty-one made for one hundred.

The war was over, and Maurits wouldn't count anymore. His days were spent dealing counseling the newly-arrived Ferines from the mainly and surveying the construction of new buildings. He was very busy now, and the morbid habit of his had no place in a world where the two races were trying to bridge their differences.

But he always made time to return to his sanctuary—to his secret garden.

There were one thousand, six hundred, and fifty-one flowers to be watered and cared for.

And he always spent a moment to remember each life he had counted, lingering a few moments longer on the first and the last.


End file.
